Maazel Moves Forward

Lorin Maazel was at his best last week, when, in one of the first concerts of his final season at the helm of the New York Philharmonic, he led the group in crackling performances of Bernard Rands’s new work “Chains Like the Sea” and of Tchaikovsky’s sweeping Third Orchestral Suite. And when his term ends next spring, he will not be going gently into the night—indeed, within a week he will be conducting the chamber operas of Benjamin Britten at his new festival at Castleton Farms, his Virginia estate (July 4-19).

Like Britten in Aldeburgh, Maazel has decided to map home and work onto one another. While he has been giving concerts for some time in the estate’s Theatre House, next summer will see the opening of the Barn Theatre, which will seat some two hundred and fifty people. These performances will be only the core of a month-long festival that will involve other concerts, recitals, and master classes for advanced young musicians. If you’re free this weekend, you can travel down to Rappahannock County to take in the maestro’s performances of Britten’s delightful “Albert Herring,” in a fully-staged production (Oct. 11-12; 540-937-8969). He’s pictured (courtesy of New York Social Diary) with his wife, Dietlinde Turban-Maazel, the actress and co-founder of the new festival.

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